


peel

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Angst, Gap Filler, Gen, Psychological Torture, Starvation, Suicide mention, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4907308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is so hungry. And she is always eating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	peel

**Author's Note:**

> can u believe the instant my eyes opened one morning the idea of (the ending of) this fic slapped me in the face and i could not get out of bed until it was out?
> 
> hope you’re having a good day!

He is so hungry.

And she is always eating.

Rice crackers, dumplings, skewered cutlets, rice balls, sandwiches, squid, soft drinks, roll cakes, biscuits, pudding, and, then, the worst: fruit.

It’s always the freshest. Strawberries as large as her palm. ( _January?_ Seidou thinks. _January? No, February?_ ) Cherries red as jewels. ( _May already?_ _June?_ ) Flawless peaches that seem glow pink. ( _Is it…maybe…September?_ ) The styrofoam netting is usually still on these ones; she removes it, and strokes him with the fruit’s fuzz, on the part of his cheek that isn’t covered by the mesh muzzle.

Then she skips away from his chair. Sits on the boxes on the other side of the room. Takes a bite that gleams and drips down her wrapped-up chin.

And begins again.

“Tell me a story.”

At first, the only thing he answers with is the grumble of his stomach. If she hears it — no…no, she does hear it, and she ignores it, and munches on contentedly.

One day she cracks open a melon like a skull and says it again — “Tell me a story” — and this day is the first time Seidou’s voice is louder than his churning stomach.

“I don’t have a story to tell you,” he croaks out. After he says it, some part of him is surprised and earnestly proud that he still has the ability to say anything at all. As if it were possible to scream so much that one’s voice could be used up and destroyed completely.

“Everyone has one,” she replies, licking her fingers. “Maybe we could start with Akira.”

Something in his chest plummets.

“F-fuck you,” he gasps, “you’re fucking lying, there’s no way you have her, there's —”

“Ah! Poor thing. I’m sorry I excited you,” she replies. “I never said Akira-chan was _here_. I just said, maybe you can tell me a story. I know you can do it. You like to pretend to be the serious and silent type but you are so awfully chatty in your sleep.”

Is this a trick? Is she telling the truth? Does he really —

“Anyway,” she continues, “let’s be serious. Akira-chan is way too skilled to be captured by us. And certainly not the kind of coward that could be held here for such a long time without finding some method of…escape.”

Seidou’s mouth is dry. She leaves then, abandoning the melon rind carelessly, and all the flesh left on it is quickly obscured by flies. He doesn’t tell her anything really the next day, or the next, but the fissure is made. He is protesting, now, with words.

“Akira’s nothing.”

“She’s no one.”

”Just a coworker.”

“An old classmate.”

“She never even looked at me.”

“Is that so,” she replies, at every statement. Before he knows it, she has strawberries again, fat and dark and bulbous as hearts in her palm. Seidou licks his lips, and then bites them.

“If you ever meet her, Akira will kill you,” he finds himself snapping. “Just — just rip you up into little — r-ribbons. Until no one can tell whether they’re looking at — at all those bandages you have, or at your skin.”

“So scary,” she replies.

She flicks the stem of a strawberry at his feet.

“Akira-chan sounds pretty amazing. I wonder if she might have spared you a glance if you were any good at anything.”

Seidou stiffens. He knows what she’s implying.

“It wasn’t like that,” he argues, before he can stop himself, the next time she enters his cage, and she walks toward him, bends to meet him face-to-face with her arms intertwined behind her back.

“Are you sure?”

“We — never got along, ever.” He should stop talking. But he stammers on, as if every word might bring him closer to untangling the knot in his belly. “She’s — way too annoying — all the time. A-all of her ideas — and that — voice of hers — can b-barely tolerate it even when I’m — drunk out of m-my mind —”

Her dark eye is gleaming. Mesmerizing.

“Hating is really easy, isn’t it? So much easier than having feelings for someone that people might call ‘love.’”

His pulse picks up. “I — _I don’t_ —”

“It’s terrible how a feeling that you don’t even want can taint you. Control you. Make you feel…bottomless.” She prods his stomach with a finger and Seidou shudders. The closer she gets, the more he smells something — good. Sweet. He gulps in a needy breath. She pokes him again and he whines. Fractures.

“I’m hungry, I’m hungry, please — p-please —”

“Even if you got anything to eat, Takizawa-san, would it be enough? Wouldn’t you just end up being your boring, weak, mediocre self again?”

He is trembling. He can’t break the stare of her red pupil.

“You’re so afraid of death, but what’s the point of your existence? You can’t do anything. There are only a few people that matter to you, but, you know, they are the ones keeping you in chains, Takizawa-san. Not me.”

“Y-You’re — _insane_ —”

“Your family that you can’t protect. Akira-chan who you can’t impress. All your little dreams of being the best. You’ve spent your whole life feeling useless because you worked and worked to climb up the ladder and still couldn’t reach the top. But who put that ladder there in the first place? Who made you climb it?”

_I have no idea what you’e saying,_ Seidou wants to argue. _You’re wrong, you have no idea what you’re talking about, you’re insane, you don’t know me at all._

She pauses for a long time, watching, and all he does is swallow. And bend lower over his groaning belly.

“Takizawa-san,” she whispers. “The truth is, I feel sorry for you. Why didn’t anyone ask what _you_ wanted? You deserve better. You deserve to destroy those bonds holding you back. You deserve knowledge of a different way of existing, and the strength to live it. As it happens, I can grant you both.”

She reaches into her robes and pulls out an apple. It’s — _so close_ — he lunges, without thinking, and manages only to knock it out of her hand with the muzzle. It rolls across the floor, and she clicks her tongue.

The truth is that it still takes a while after that. Maybe. He thinks. Time becomes something that he comes to know only as fists wringing his stomach tighter and tighter. It hurts worse than lying on the ground three meters away from his left arm. It hurts worse than the sight of Akira’s back. It hurts worse than the uncrossable chasm that yawns between him and everything he — thought that he — wanted.

“Please…free me,” he manages, breathlessly, finally. “I’m…hungry, so please…please give it to me.”

“Ah!” He can tell she is smiling beneath her bandages. “Of course.”

She unbuckles the muzzle, and withdraws an apple, and his mouth waters as she holds it to his mouth. The skin of it is as bright and shining as blood. He bites, and chews, and vomits.


End file.
